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Ros-Lehtinen Leads Bipartisan Letter with Reps. Diaz-Balart, Sires, and Garcia To Amnesty International Requesting that Sonia Garro Alfonso, Member of the Ladies in White, Be Added To List of Prisoners of Conscience

Nov 8, 2013

Ros-Lehtinen Leads Bipartisan Letter with Reps. Diaz-Balart, Sires, and Garcia To Amnesty International Requesting that Sonia Garro Alfonso, Member of the Ladies in White, Be Added To List of Prisoners of Conscience“This bipartisan letter to Amnesty International seeks to recognize and bring much needed awareness to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Cuba.”

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, along with Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Albio Sires (D-NJ), and Joe Garcia (D-FL), sent a letter sent a letter to Amnesty International urging the organization to add Sonia Garro Alfonso, a Cuban pro-democracy advocate who has been unjustly imprisoned by the Castro regime for over a year and a half, to its Prisoners of Conscience list for Cuba. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

“Sonia Garro Alfonso has been unjustly held by the Castro regime just because she wanted to exercise her basic human right of freedom of expression but sadly, she and other brave pro-democracy advocates like her continue to be targeted by a tyrannical regime who attempts to quash all those who express their desire to see fundamental freedoms and human rights be respected. As a member of the Ladies in White, who demonstrate peacefully on behalf of their loved ones who’ve fallen victim to the Castro brothers’ brutal oppression, Sonia has endured harassment, beatings, and imprisonment for over one year and a half in one of Castro’s rat-infested gulags.

“This bipartisan letter to Amnesty International seeks to recognize and bring much needed awareness to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Cuba. Sonia should be considered as a prisoner of conscience because she has been jailed unjustly for her political views, and her case is one of many examples demonstrating the dismal human rights situation in Cuba.”